The making of the Catbus costume

Inspired by Studio Ghibli‘s animation “My Neighbour Totoro” and Adam Savage’s one day Totoro costume build, I created a 4-person Catbus cosplay for our family to take to festivals as a street art piece.

Our family are mad fans of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli and our kids grew up watching My Neighbour Totoro. The Catbus in this movie is inspired by the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. We all love the crazily imaginative Catbus and the whimsical combination of magic, cosy friendliness and helpfulness Miyazaki transformed it into. And we’d always wanted to be able to ride in our very own Catbus

And so, with the help of my family, I decided to turn that dream into a reality. Because the family that cosplays together, stays together!

Our Catbus is nearly 7ft x 4ft from head to tail and took about 3 months to build. Designed to be a 4-person costume, it operates a little like the Flintstone’s car and also has a wagging tail. It’s roomy and lush inside and his luxurious fur coat is thanks to Emma’s Bears / Fur Addiction.

Catbus was a family team effort. My daughter Maia contributed her knowledge of fursuit costume making to collaborate on his skin, and sculpted his nose out of foam. My son Kai was the ultimate roadie, helping to lug the skin and take it on and off multiple times for fittings (believe me — it’s heavy and like wrestling a dead bear). And of course my partner in crime as always was my engineering husband Adam, who had the challenge of ensuring the frame was well-constructed and of making it all work.

But Catbus is very heavy and it’s not easy to take people for rides in him. Inspired by the amazing art cars at Burning Seed and we’re now working on Catbus v2.0 – turning him into a wheeled, pedal-powered vehicle that is easier to operate and can take people for rides.

Adam Savage tweeted about Catbus! I might have squeed and fangirl’d a wee bit.

Read more about the creation of Catbus on Medium. And visit Catbus’s Facebook page.

Materials